Case Number 14009

Hybrid

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All Rise...

Judge David Johnson had a different reaction to his wolf eyeball transplant. Instead of super-strength and night vision, he has an insatiable hunger for Alpo.

The Charge

A new breed of terror.

Opening Statement

Justine Bateman dissects animals and gives their eyes to blind people. Film
at 11!

Facts of the Case

When a brilliant scientist invents a way to graft animal eyeballs onto the
brain stem of a human being, she decides to run the first procedure on a guy
named Aaron (Corey Monteith), who was recently blinded in an industrial
accident. A few slices and dices later, Aaron awakes with a new set of eyes,
courtesy of a wolf that had been dropped off at a vet clinic by an attractive
Native American woman named Lydia (Tinsel Korey).

He's pretty psyched at first, being able to see in the dark and showing off
his new kick-ass pupils. But something's up with the surgery, as it begins to
reveal bizarre effects in Aaron, including increased aggression, superhuman
strength, mutual attraction to dogs and Animal Planet hallucinations.

The Evidence

I will do my absolute best to refrain from using the lines
"Hybrid dogs it" or "Hybrid goes straight to the
dogs" or "Hybrid is doggone stupid." It's tempting, but
that would be the sign of a writer bored with his assignment, desperate to make
deadline and aiming to simply fill space for a review of a movie that could
easily be summed up in a single sentence like, say, Hybrid takes a
ridiculous premise, layers on vapid acting, lazy writing and broken action
scenes, mixes in half-baked Native American mythology and farts out yet another
disposable entry into the erstwhile "Maneater Series" from Genius
Products.

So we got our hero Aaron, who just doesn't know how to handle these bizarre,
new feelings he's been experiencing. His body is changing and it's disturbing
him. No, silly, Aaron's not going through puberty, he's just in the middle of a
massive round of lycanthropy, or, rather, when someone is convinced that he's a
wolf. Except that Aaron really is becoming a wolf, thanks to that eyeball
transplant (for some reason). Unfortunately, the budget just isn't there to
actually transform the guy into a human-wolf monster, so instead we get this guy
Cory Monteith running around shirtless with fake blood covering his face,
talking to street dogs, jumping long distances and prancing through the fields
with his wolf friends. And yes that field-prancing nonsense is the unbelievably
corny ending.

Nothing works in this sad excuse for a creature feature. The story is
nonsense from the beginning, incoherent in so many ways—go ahead choose
one, maybe it's the fact that this guy gets wolf eyeballs in the first place or
the military goes ape-dirt (of course) and unleashes lethal violence to get
Aaron back once he makes a break for it or Lydia's moral compass that says it's
wrong for a sick wolf to die in exchange for a disabled man getting his life
back.

Worse, it's boring. Aside from a few scrapes with the authorities and a lot
of growling there is zero action to be found. In lieu of actual thrills,
Hybird opts instead to bombard its audience with unending scenes of Aaron
pounding on drums and visualizing wolves chasing buffalo in slow motion.
Fantastic. And when he's not psychically connecting with his inner Ranger Rick
subscription, he's doing other interesting things like engaging in fully-clothed
intercourse with his girlfriend, taking bong hits off of righteous Native dope,
or eating his own poop. OK, he doesn't do that last thing, but I'll guarantee it
makes the sequel.

The disc is as slender as they come: 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, 2.0
stereo sound, and a trailer for yet another crappy low-budget killer animal
movie.

Closing Statement

If you count "boring" and "cheesy" as a hybrid, then
there's your deeper meaning behind the title.